Summer doldrums for canaries

Like many other bird species, canaries go through a "molting" phase during the mid-summer months, as they shed worn-out feathers and wait for new ones to grow back. They scratch and shake themselves quite often, and they spend a lot of time in the sun, which seems to soothe them. You can tell that Luciano and Lucy just aren't comfortable lately, and they seem to get more irritated with each other as well. We find two or three old feathers every night when we clean their cage, and sometimes more. We provide them with special dietary supplements for canaries during their molting phase, and try to avoid upsetting them unduly. Luciano stopped singing entirely about three weeks ago, and he probably won't start again until mid-August, at least.

Even though they are more subdued and often rather nervous while molting, our canaries remain trusting in us. Lucy is more wary, probably because she remembers the months last year when we had to give her medicine every day, in an attempt to cure her persistent cough. Her breathing has improved in the last few months, but she has lost so many facial feathers that she looks rather homely, like a baby bird. She also has hygiene problems related to her poor respiratory capacity, and needs help in bathing occasionally. I hope those conditions are not permanent. Lucy does not like to be handled, and whenever we pick her up to give her a bath, Luciano flies around us and calls in an alarmed tone, as if he is trying to rescue her. They still have not mated, because Lucy is just not healthy enough to build a nest or lay eggs, but they are sometimes affectionate toward one another. As for Luciano himself, he is the same friendly guy as always, as you can see in this photo which Jacqueline took just yesterday:

Lucy watches from a safe distance as the daring Luciano nibbles on flowers in an odd place.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 06 Jul 2010, 8: 32 AM .

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My blog practices

My general practice is to make no more than one blog post per day on any one category. For this reason, some blog posts may address more than one specific issue, as indicated by separate headings. If something important happens during the day after I make a blog post, I may add an updated paragraph or section to it, using the word "UPDATE" and sometimes a horizontal rule to distinguish the new material from the original material. For each successive day, blog posts are listed on the central blog page (which brings together all topics) from top to bottom in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the order in which the posts were originally made:

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The current "home made" blog organization system that I created, featuring real permalinks, was instituted on November 1, 2004. Prior to that date, blog posts were handled inconsistently, and for that reason the pre-2005 archives pages are something of a mess. Furthermore, my blogging prior to June 1, 2004 was often sporadic in terms of frequency.

Blog errata
(preliminary)

April 4, 2008: "Andy Ashby" should be "Andy Jones"

April 3, 2010: "Mike Morgan" should be "Nyjer Morgan"

: "" should be ""

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